The present invention relates generally to apparatus for remotely controlling tape recorders and the like to retrieve information therefrom and more particularly to a remote control transcribing device for controlling an automatic telephone answering apparatus from a remote location to transcribe information stored by the telephone answering apparatus.
Reference may be made to the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,716,241; 3,691,300; 3,027,425; 3,678,484; 3,736,380; 3,712,961; 3,524,026; 3,499,993; 3,443,032; 3,405,234; 3,324,245; 2,936,336; and 2,866,852.
Remotely controlled telephone answering devices are commonly used to receive and record telephone messages whenever a home or place of business is left unattended. In the absence of the device's user, other persons, upon calling and receiving a pre-recorded message informing them that the user is out, are invited to have their messages recorded by the device for the user's attention when he returns or calls in from a remote location. One advantage of remotely controlled answering devices is that the user may often times find it more practical to call in to receive messages recorded in his absence rather than returning to his home or office. Since the messages recorded in his absence may dictate his subsequent course of action, the user can then more efficiently schedule his time.
Often, however, when calling in from a remote location, the user for various reasons may have only a limited time in which to play back the recorded messages. For example, the recorded messages may have consumed many minutes of recording time while the user has only a few minutes to listen to the messages before he must be at his next appointment. Accordingly, it would be advantageous if means could be provided for reducing the time required to receive or transcribe the messages recorded by the automatic answering device.
Existing remote control transcribing devices, however, have generally required complex circuitry for triggering, seizing, and indexing the remote telephone answering machine and for performing functions necessary to satisfactorily retrieve the message information from the telephone answering apparatus.
Moreover, most existing remotely controlled telephone answering devices do not include means for indicating either the amount of tape used or the time elapsed in recording messages during the user's absence. Thus, even though the recorded messages can be transcribed back in a substantially reduced amount of time, the user does not have any information available on which to base his decision whether or not he will have enough time to listen to all of the recorded messages. Once the message information is transcribed, knowledge of the tape position or the amount of elapsed recording time would enable the user to decide whether he should play back the messages immediately or postpone the playback to a more convenient time.